The World Championships return to Cairns after last being held here in 1996, today we walked the track before heading to the pits and this is what we saw: Continue reading “Cairns – Day 1: Track Walk & Pit Bits”
Cairns – Day 1: Track Walk & Pit Bits
World Championships – Andorra
The 26th World Championships were everything the ‘race of the year’ was billed up to be. Held in the Principality of Andorra, which is located in the Pyrenees, home of 85,000 people it was fair to say this was one event which had a lot of people talking about the place. The lead up to the race is always different from you regular world cups, there is no qualifying and the schedule looks different from what we are use to.
Legendary racer, turned commentator, Rob Warner was gauging the riders feedback all week and the overall consensus was that the track was definitely up to the task of holding a world championships. The weather was pretty average for the majority of the event, the sun was out on Sunday for the finals though.
The majority of riders survived practice in the lead up to the event, only a few registered a DNS. Now as a spectator worlds is a stomach churning affair so you can only imagine what it is like for the racers, Rachel Atherton even had to vomit, that’s how much it means to these racers! Moving onto race day and it was the juniors off first, the junior women to be exact! For Australia it was Ellie Wale representing with a 6th place. Turning to junior men, in his first worlds foray Jackson Frew was Australia’s highest placed finisher taking the bronze medal. Australia’s most likely winner, Andrew Crimmins, who has had a stellar world cup season crashed and finished well down the order. It was his game plan of all or nothing, in this case he rolled the dice and the house won but have no doubt he will be back a stronger rider next year.
Next came the women and the track was drying out more but the wooded sections were still quite slippery and caught more than a few riders off guard. Moving up from last year saw Tegan Molloy racing the senior class, unfortunately a tumble saw her hopes of a win evaporate. After an up and down season Tracey Hannah finished on a high note with another bronze medal for Australia, Manon Carpenter got close but couldn’t hold onto the rainbow stripes from last year with a silver medal. In the end it was the dominant rider of 2015, Rachel Atherton, who took the jersey back to the UK with her.
The tension had been steadily rising all day and when the men kicked off everyone was excited! Spectators lined the course, riders headed to the top with trainers, photographers checked their memory cards and like that we were racing! Coming down were some riders who wouldn’t normally qualify for world cups so it was great to see this mix. There were also plenty of crashes as wooden bridges, roots and the general steep nature of the track caught riders off guard.
After four second place finishes this year it was Loic Bruni who made his first win the most important one! He took the world championship jersey and with that a huge weight off his shoulders. Greg Minnaar and his Santa Cruz team mate Josh Bryceland were second and third respectively. For the other contenders it was a case of what could have been with names such as Atherton and Gwin crashing out.
That wraps up the 2015 international season, what a ride and what a great way to finish it off!
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Pick of the Pics: World Championships – Hafjell
So instead of all these photos from the World Championships’ in Hafjell gathering dust on hard drives somewhere we thought we would do a bulk upload for this Pick of the Pics, many are caption your own but regardless enjoy!
Photos: Jason Stevens Photography and stock images. Facebook:A�www.facebook.com/jasonstevensphotographyA�or follow @jasonstevensphotography on Instagram
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World Championships, Hafjell a�� Race Day
The 2014 world championships in Hafjell, Norway will go down into the history books for so many reasons. It was a day of unexpected events, crazy performances and some great riding. As usual it started off in the morning with practice, one thing to note from practice was the higher number of flat tyres we saw today, it’s highly likely that the track had blown out so much that is what was causing them. One omission from yesterday’s practice report was that Connor Fearon had a big crash in the rock garden and suffered some non life threatening but still serious injuries. An update from him earlier suggested he is okay and in hospital, best wishes from everyone here at Downhill247.com on your recovery!
Moving on from practice to racing, first up was the juniors and more specifically the females. After having a stellar world cup season taking the overall we knew Tegan Molloy was in with a good chance. Once Tegan came down we had a few more riders to wait to see where she would finish, as the last rider crossed the line Tegan became the 2014 junior champion! A well deserved winner.
Shortly after Tegan became the champion it was onto the junior men, Australia had a strong group of juniors so expectations were high. It was here in the junior men’s race we really noticed a few things, one how blown out the track had become and how much faster everyone was pushing. In fact the whole days racing we saw a large number of punctures and riders pushing just too hard and crashing. We initially thought it may have just been the juniors inexperience but as the day progressed we discovered this wasn’t the case.
The rest of the junior race, well what to say, it is fair to say that most of the favorites had issues, whether it be crashing or mechanical. That is part and parcel of racing, for some juniors they will get another chance next year in Andorra for others they will be making the move up to the senior ranks.
Next up the senior women. The crowd had now started to pour into the venue and up the hill, the sun was out and there was no chance of rain so conditions were good. 25 women started only one was going to get their hands on the gold medal! Tahnee Seagrave was on the hot seat as Tracey Hannah came down the hill cheered on by brother Mic. Tracey went into second place a few seconds behind Tahnee, we waited in anticipation to see what the rest of the field could do… It soon looked like it may be an all British podium with just Rachel Atherton left to come and Manon Carpenter on the hot seat. At the first split Rachel went fastest, the same green flashed on the timing board for the second interval, at this stage many people would have bet Rachel was going to take it. However, there was still a large rock garden and some big jumps before the finish, as Rachel crossed the line red flashed up on screen. Manon had won by 0.088 over Rachel in second, Tahnee third and Tracey in fourth.
With 90 riders on the start list senior men was always going to be a big day, Australia’s Graeme Mudd came down early due to the way that the ranking system works. Graeme crashed but still took the hot seat and ended up sitting there for some time, until Bryn Atkinson came down 30 or so riders later and the Australians were 1 and 2 on the hot seat.
As the top 10 came down the hill everyone stayed focused on the big screens, the gasp was audible as Sam Hill crashed. At this stage a lot of people were thinking Neko Mulally might possibly win… It is worth pointing out that Neko lost his chain out of the start gate before the first jump! Someone at Trek World Racing might have to answer for that!
Racing became a blur as rider after rider failed to get into the top spot, Brook MacDonald ended up 5th, Neko was still on the hot seat. Greg Minaar flatted, Sam Blenkinsop thought he flatted so he backed off on the last few corners but he didn’t actually have a flat! It left only a few riders to go, Troy Brosnan has had a really great season. He wanted the win here and has a good record at world champs as a junior, something he wants to continue in his senior year. Off at the splits Troy slotted in behind Gee Atherton who was on the hot seat with only Josh Bryceland left. Josh was up at the splits but the last jump didn’t go to plan as he over shot it by a long distance unfortunately shattering his leg/ankle/foot. This left the Athertons with another world title, a good day for that family indeed.
We have lots more to show you from Hafjell, check back soon.
Photos: Jason Stevens Photography and stock images. Facebook:A�www.facebook.com/jasonstevensphotographyA�or follow @jasonstevensphotography on Instagram
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World Championships, Hafjell – Timed Practice
Today was a short day, practice was very minimal across all classes and seniors got a timed practiced run to give them some gauge of their speed on the track. Alternatively not all riders chose to do their timed run at full pace or even near their race speed which always means you have to take the rimes with a pinch of salt! First of all back to practice, in fact back to yesterday, there was some unfortunate news AustralianA�Matt McCorkell won’t be competing in this years race due to his crash but we wish him all the best on his recovery! On that rather down note it was also sad to see Emeline Ragot walking down the track during practice, her bike being wheeled, a crash higher up the course resulted in an injury to her wrist that saw it plastered up!
It was timed practice for the senior guys and girls after the short morning practice, both were topped by the reigning champions, Rachel Atherton and Greg Minnaar. As we said earlier though it can’t be considered a definitive indication of everyone’s pace, Aron Gwin for example was 24th but we expect that to improve on race day.
Senior Women
1. ATHERTON Rachel 3:53.538
2. CARPENTER Manon 3:57.266 +3.728
3. NICOLE Myriam 3:57.480 +3.942
4. SEAGRAVE Tahnee 4:02.651 +9.113
5. KINTNER Jill 4:04.220 +10.682
…
7.A�HANNAH TraceyA�4:08.557 +15.019
Senior Men
1. MINNAAR Greg 3:27.399
2. HART Danny 3:28.214 +0.815
3. ATHERTON Gee 3:28.279 +0.880
4. BRANNIGAN George 3:28.981 +1.582
5. BROSNAN Troy 3:29.621 +2.222
…
6.A�HILL SamuelA�3:29.899 +2.500
11. ATKINSON Bryn A�3:31.494 +4.095
15. FEARON ConnorA�3:32.904 +5.505
23.A�HANNAH MichaelA�3:35.248 +7.849
25.A�MOIR JackA�3:35.778 +8.379
27.A�MUDD GraemeA�3:36.065 +8.666
In a slightly different move to normal world cups the juniors came after seniors for their training, we spotted lots of ‘helpers’ on the side of the track from different countries all looking to give their juniors the advice that might be the edge to winning!
There is only one more day left, the most important one of all! Check back once there are new world champions crowned!
Photos: Jason Stevens Photography and stock images. Facebook:A�www.facebook.com/jasonstevensphotographyA�or follow @jasonstevensphotography on Instagram
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World Championships, Hafjell a�� Junior Seeding
Today here in Hafjell we had junior seeding early in the morning before practice for men and women afterwards. It was a day of contrast with Mother Nature showing two distinctly different sides, the early morning junior time slot saw much of the mountain covered in fog before the day evolved into blue sky and sunshine.
With junior practice out of the way and no major incidents to report it was onto seeding. Seeding at world championships is not qualifying so therefore it is just an indication of riders speed as long as a rider starts their seeding run they are eligible to race in the finals.
It was the junior females that started off seeding, Australia’s own reigning junior world cup champion Tegan Molloy hit the track first, she seeded third we hope come finals she will move up a few spots and don the rainbows!
The top 5 junior men was made up of some familiar faces, these riders are well known and have been at the pointy end all season.
Junior men seeding
1. Loris Vergier
2. Taylor Vernon
3. Amaury Pierron
4. Martin Maes
5. Luca Shaw
We will have a further look at the junior seeding results and more specifically the Australians.
With seeding out of the way it left elite practice for the rest of the day, at this stage the cloud started to lift and the sun came out! Most riders took advantage of today’s reasonably long session and notched up the runs. No real big dramas, a few flats, some stand out riders and most of all some crazy riding. The track here in Hafjell (pronounced huff-yell) has a bit of everything, big jumps, corners, fast sections and technical areas, whoever wins on Sunday will be a deserving winner.
Tomorrow is timed practice, check back for that!
Photos: Jason Stevens Photography and stock images. Facebook:A�www.facebook.com/jasonstevensphotographyA�or follow @jasonstevensphotography on Instagram
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